STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - Are you voting next Tuesday? Your answer to that question likely has a lot to do with the cues you received from your parents during childhood, as much of what we believe about our civic duties is shaped during the formative years, political sociologists surmise. If you want your own children to be engaged citizens, you must work at instilling these values in them early on.

“It’s hard to talk [to kids] about politics in an engaging way,” admits Richard Flanagan, associate professor of political science at the College of Staten Island. “Voting is a civic duty” and “it’s the American way” messages simply don’t cut it, he argues, adding, “The minute it becomes a homily, it’s utterly uninteresting.”

One way to make the electoral process more exciting for the can’t-vote-yet set, Flanagan says, is to highlight the “passion and conflict” — the “blood and guts,” so to speak — rather than simply “presenting two sides of the story.”

Beth Gorrie, executive director of Staten Island OutLOUD, which hosts family-friendly events year-round centered on American history, suggests parents include children in dinner table conversations about current events.

“By involving kids in those discussions, they can start exercising their own powers of reason, articulating their own ideas as they grow more aware of the community and world around them and as they discern their own roles in the community,” she explains.

Families can take it a step further by attending political rallies and/or community meetings where opposing candidates debate and then discussing both sides of the issue at home, she says.

“On Election Day,” Ms. Gorrie adds, “a parent can reinforce these messages by bringing their kids along when they vote or by watching election returns (if it is not too late) or by reading and discussing the post-election news with their kids.”

“Children will certainly parrot their parents’ opinions, but we can go further and help them understand the voting process, develop negotiation skills, practice critical thinking and engage in important social studies and civic learning,” asserts Rachel Robertson, early childhood education expert and director of education and development at Bright Horizons, a national provider of child care and early education.

Ms. Robertson says parents should heed how they frame political discussions and watch what they say within children’s earshot.

Relating how her daughter’s friend, a third-grader, recently told her, “My dad says the president is ruining the country,” she warns such harsh comments can paint the situation as hopeless for children “who don’t have the experience to make sense of this.”

But, she cautions, the other extreme — depicting a politician as some kind of god — is inadvisable as well.

While watching the presidential debates and election coverage is a great way for families to start a political dialogue, Ms. Robertson says parents should do so only if they are prepared to answer some of the challenging questions that might crop up, such as the case of a father she knows who was asked by his son, “Why do people go to war?”

When fielding a question like this, Ms. Robertson advises finding out why your child is asking before supplying a long, involved answer that may not fit in with the information he or she truly is seeking. So, in the war example, she says, you might ask, “What is it about war that worries you most?”

For older children, though, Flanagan encourages parents to delve deeper and dissect the issue as a way to help teens think critically and evaluate the plans both sides are presenting.

The professor also recommends researching as a family some of the policies candidates put forth and showing kids how a plan may help one demographic while hurting the other.

Ms. Gorrie says parents can demonstrate the democratic value of how “one person can make a difference by volunteering on a campaign and involving their children in appropriate activities, like handing out literature or putting up a campaign sign on their own front lawn.”

Echoing Ms. Gorrie’s sentiments, Ms. Robertson says that especially during election time, when kids are bombarded with negative ads and news and may feel like everything is spinning out of control, it’s a good time to examine “how we can contribute to change in our world” by picking a cause and volunteering on a local level.

To show kids of all ages that their say matters, as well as offer a lesson in how to handle things when they don’t get what they want, Ms. Robertson recommends voting on issues at home, like which movie to see or vacation destination to visit.

Or, perhaps, you could do what students and faculty at New Dorp High School are doing at school and stage a mock presidential debate at home.

As Craig Simonetti, the history teacher overseeing the event, explains, two teams of five — one representing former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and the other President Barack Obama — will debate core election issues such as health care, foreign policy and taxes, as a teacher moderates the discussion.

After listening to each team’s positions, students in the audience will vote for the team that won them over. To reduce any political biases students may have, the teams will be anonymous and the audience won’t know which side is representing which candidate until after the votes are tallied.

“They will see the issues first,” Dina Zoleo, assistant principal of social studies, says, explaining why coordinators opted to conduct the debate this way.

Now, if only every American would vote like that. Â

TAIL: Elise McIntosh, editor of the Staten Island Advance, may be reached at mcintosh@siadvance.com.